Spring Semester Has Sprung

It’s the end of my first week of school in 2007. I’m feeling pretty good. I think the workload will be manageable, and I already find the classes rather interesting. Provided I don’t let myself slack and end up drowning in stress, I do believe this could be another richly rewarding semester. It helps that one of my classes got canceled—Wittgenstein. I had only intended to audit the class, so it’s no real loss to me. In fact, I had already wondered if I wouldn’t just end up shirking my Wittgenstein readings half the time anyway, because I’d know the class doesn’t really count for anything and I’d find myself busy with other homework and/or tempted by extracurricular activities (e.g. watching movies, writing blogs, actually hanging out with my family). I really consider it a blessing that the class is canceled, though it’s a sadly lost opportunity. The guy who was going to teach it is supposedly rather renowned as a Wittgenstein scholar. I would’ve been learning from the best. Oh well.

In addition to my regular classes, this semester I’ll be serving as a “Critical Thinking Tutor.” What this means is that I’m obligated weekly (not weakly obligated) to sit in on two sessions of Critical Thinking (Philosophy 1010) and hold three office hours during which students can come to me for help understanding the material. Eventually, I’ll have to lead mandatory review sessions for the students. It will be a bit daunting, as this is going to be my first exposure to anything remotely like being an actual instructor. But it’ll be a good experience, wetting my feet a bit before I take over my own classes in the fall. The only bummer is that I have to hold these office hours even though, as everyone has told me, it’ll be an incredibly rare instance that a student actually comes to me. So, because I don’t have an actual office, I just have to sit in the overcrowded philosophy department computer lab for three hours a week. I guess that’s an easy task, and provided no students show up, I can get a lot of reading (or blogging) done. But it means I have to get up a lot earlier once a week, and it also means I have to go the philosophy department, which is kind of removed from where all my classes are located this semester. Not big complaints, and I should be grateful since this is how I earn my tuition waiver. But those are my thoughts, so there you go.

Much more is always left to be said, and I hope I’ll get to some of it in the near future. For those who actually check in here from time to time, thanks for sticking with me. I always aspire to writing more often, and I always think I really will. I feel that way now, what with the upcoming office hours I just mentioned. Until then, for those of you lucky enough to have Monday off, like myself, enjoy it. I’ll be checking in here again soon…